


Hope and Eternity

by FireEye



Category: Final Fantasy I
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28567629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: After the time loop is broken, some dark vestige of Chaos still drags at the scales of balance.
Relationships: Black Mage/Black Mage/Black Mage/Black Mage
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	Hope and Eternity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



They were four.

In the depths of Chaos’ Temple, they stood together – practitioners of dark magic weaving spells around the darkest of magics given form and breath and thought. A heart of purest evil, against which they persevered.

The demon rippled and unraveled into the darkness whence it came. What remained was the crumpled body of a knight, armor black and tainted and stained with innocent blood.

Ziya stood apart, the sword they had uncovered in the Temple’s depths in hand. Tall and brazen, secretive and distant, and for all the world and its cycles of time cut like a hero in a tapestry. He had foresworn the magic, in the end breaking ranks to draw the monster to him and strike the killing blow.

Jude ran to him.

Neither of their remaining company had grown close to him... but she had cast light upon their hearts in the darkest of days, and even Ziya at times had softened to her charm.

“It is finished, then,” Wis said. “It is done.”

Ziya looked to them.

Then to Jude, holding him dearly.

Then he turned away.

***

And time itself shifted.

And the world changed.

And life renewed itself.

Yet formless evil gnawed unendingly at the roots of the world.

***

The obsidian tower had risen, dark and ominous, from the heart of the ancient ruin. It devoured the light of the sun and shimmered black in the shadow of the moon.

Garland’s knights had fallen against it, bodies left shattered and broken amidst the harsh, knife-like spires that scattered its base. No science of the Lufein, no magic of the Elves nor engineering of the Dwarves could penetrate its shell. The shadow it cast grew longer, draining the forces of nature from the four altars.

The Sages were cast adrift in sleep, their prophecies unspoken and the stars silent. 

After two thousand years of peace, the world swayed pendulously, once more in the balance.

The Light of three Orbs flickered weakly, and the fourth extinguished.

And so it came to be that three heroes – Cast in Darkness, Champions of Light – stood at the foot of the tower. Three, because the fourth had fallen beyond hope.

“ _No_.”

Wis and Anis exchanged an uneasy glance. Anis coughed into his sleeve, and looked away.

“You realize,” Wis said, “That it may not be possible to save him.”

He confronted the truth head-on, as always, but her pain was not lost upon him.

She who practiced the most potent poisons also suffered the softest heart.

It had always seemed such a strange thing.

Jude’s expression darkened. “If he cannot be saved, then what use is there in saving anything? Let the world burn and turn to ash; let the oceans rage upon the every shore; let the land rot away and never be another seed nurtured; let the moon and all the stars be cast from the heavens. I won’t be a part of it. I won’t!”

Wis reached for her shoulder, and she shrugged him off. Anis wrapped an arm around her, and though fidgeting at first, she relented, leaning into him. Wis joined their embrace, and Jude’s hand found the small of his back.

They remained like that together, amidst the glittering shards. Amidst the rattling bones and shambling dead.

The three of them had come together through adversity, bound together in fate, and remained within one another’s hearts no matter what the distance. They had fought together, laughed together, wept together; watched over one another in the darkest nights and woken beside one another in the gentle light of dawn.

But of Ziya, only Jude had reached through the darkness to touch the filaments of his soul. And if he was lost to her, truly, then she was lost to them.

And that, quite simply, could not be.

“I can reach him,” she promised. “I know I can. I-...”

Anis kissed her temple, soothing her gently. Wis only held them both tighter. His conviction wavered – if Ziya could not be reasoned with, could truly not be swayed....

But even as they had been at odds on their quest to restore Light to the Orbs, Wis could not have dreamed him capable of this. And if he could not now trust the man who had once been one of them, he could only trust the woman who still had faith in him, outshining the sun and the moon and the brightest of stars.

For her, he could do no less.

***

Although there was no gate or entry to speak of, the barrier of darkness could not repel those chosen by the Light.

Jude led the way, unusually enough. Having deferred that particular tradition to her, Wis trailed them both, leaving Anis between them, where he followed her close the woman ahead of him.

The unhallowed halls of the tower welcomed them deeper within, to a labyrinth of ink-stained crystal, inhabited by grey shades and shadows that danced within the walls and fled before them. Twists and turns and dead ends, perceptible only by the absence of moonlight, all twining ever upward.

Awaiting their arrival at the zenith of the tower – the heart of the Temple that now was – Ziya sat upon a throne of carven bones. The skeletal remnants of two dragons flanked the dais, asleep in death and dreaming even as their master dreamed. Bones danced and rattled for his amusement, and spirits cried out and wept.

Ziya’s eyes were empty, expression cold in alabaster stone as his once-companions stepped foot within the chamber.

Bones fell where they stood, spirits whistling in their haste to whisper away. The dragons stirred, vertebrae scratching and rumbling.

Jude stood before him, unafraid. Standing by her side, Anis reached for her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. Wis lay his hand upon her shoulder.

They were three.

An elementalist, a high sorcerer, and a witch, at odds with a necromancer that had taken upon himself the soul of Chaos to save them.

And they would save him, in return.

For the heart of them, there was no other choice.

**Author's Note:**

> I could write this game a lot and every time different ideas about how it all works I swear. Please enjoy! <3


End file.
